Maybe I can't get Wendy Kopp to write me a note like some other upstart bloggers can, but I can tell you that it's only a little while until the much-anticipated "discussion" about how to improve TFA shows up in the June issue of PDK International.

That issue of PDK will feature Megan Hopkins' analysis of what TFA could do to strengthen its program, which was mentioned in last September's New York Times overview of the program's strengths and weaknesses.

What'll happen next? As in the past, TFA will squash any criticism of its efforts by a combination of three strategies: (a) killing its milder critics with passable kindness and a startling display of straight white teeth, (b) claiming to have already considered and implemented/dismissed the recommended approaches, and (c) sending out word among the reformista club to crush and question any who would dare critique TFA.

The
candidate didn't come right out and say he'd scrap the SATs, but it
sure sounds like he's thinking along those lines: "We also need to
realize that we can meet high standards without forcing teachers and
students to spend most of the year preparing for a single, high-stakes
test," Obama said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

These days, creating Facebook "pages" is all the rage among folks
who are trying and capture some of the 70 million users Facebook claims
to have (fewer but fancier than MySpace). Barack Obama's page has 867K fans.
Justin Timberlake's has 194K.

I snuck onto Facebook way back when you still had to give a college email to get onto the site and I started feeding my blog posts over there about a year ago (Blogging On Facebook). I have a healthy number of Facebook "friends" -- including many colleagues and blog readers (see full list here). However, since then I have fallen way behind -- not quite sure that it was worth the effort.

I'm still not sure, but in the meantime here's my new Facebook page. Feel free to sign up as a fan or click on the picture of me in the blue shirt to see some "secret" pics and images that you may remember from the past.

A Crisis for a Georgia School District NPRFor
the second time in five years, the school district in Georgia's Clayton
County is on probation. The district faces a loss of accreditation that
could mean next year's seniors will find trouble getting into college.

The new small-schools movement NewsweekMayors
in cities like New York, Chicago, Milwaukee and San Diego have been
replacing their large dysfunctional inner-city high schools with
smaller ones that are specially designed to keep students from falling
through the cracks. A Bronx school exemplifies the trend.

Gender-based math gap missing in some countries APBoys
outperform girls on a math test given to children worldwide, but the
gender gap is less pronounced in countries where women and men have
similar rights and opportunities, according to a study published
Thursday.

All this assessment nonsense has made data entry a big part of many teachers' lives, even in the age of online data entry systems. Introducing the Jeven Tracker to help. With a device like this and a scanner sheet, teachers scan grades in rather than entering them on a keyboard or PDA. Next up: barcoding kids' foreheads.

The underground "Stop Snitching" campaign is now affecting not just law enforcement but also journalism, according to this article (See No Evil), and is increasingly known about among young children and teens. There's no evidence that it's also affecting teachers and other adults in schools, but I can't help but imagine that must be the case. After all, the prohibitions on tattling often starts on the playground.

Standards everyone can meet Joanne JacobsSome
students at the high-scoring MATCH charter school in Boston are
transferring in their last semester to district-run public schools,
apparently in search of lower standards.

Some people are all about Obama staffer Reggie Love, the candidate's "body man" who has been getting all sorts of coverage this past week.

Me, I'm more of a Heather Higginbottom kind of person. She probably doesn't much care to be quoted in a story about Obama's cautiousness on the policy front (On Policy, Obama Breaks Little New Ground) or want me to run this picture over and over again, but that's the price the Chicago-based Obama policy guru pays for being in the public eye (and for her boss's lofty rhetoric about transformation, etc.).

Some of you may have noticed a new ad over on the right side, touting a new NEA blog/podcast page from Joel Packer: Yes, Packer (and the NEA) are joining the blogosphere (here). Should be fun. I don't care much for podcasts, but they're providing transcripts and I can imagine Joel being good at this. It certainly seems like a wise move on their part to be getting their view out more regularly than via press release. Now if only the AFT Blog would come back into full form, and if someone from SEIU started blogging about education issues, we'd have a quorum.

At the event, Obama regurgitated the (inaccurate) slam that NCLB relies on a "a single,
high-stakes test," according to this report (Obama tours Colorado school, touts education plans EdWeek) and did the whole curriculum narrowing thing, too, about which I have my doubts.

He's also proposing a national service-type thing that to my eye looks an awful lot like a federal version of TFA. Just what schools (and school reform) doesn't need -- more FNG short-timers making everyone feel good about high-need schools (Full text of Obama's education speech). Yeah, I'm against that.

Algebra I Stumping High School FreshmenDetroit Free PressThousands of high school freshmen across Michigan are failing Algebra
I, the first of four math courses this class of students must take and
pass to fulfill what are among the toughest graduation requirements in
the nation.

Georgia Doesn't Track Students Who Fail CRCT AJCAbout 36,000 Georgia eighth-graders tried but never passed the math
test required for high school admission in 2006 and 2007. After that,
state officials have no idea what happened.

Life Imitating Art ... Kinda Campaign K12In the fictional campaign, education was actually a major issue. And teachers' unions' endorsements were pivotal, according to wikipedia and my (admittedly hazy) memory.

Wanted: Something Else to Protest EIAMonths after massive protests and alarm over school layoffs began, only a fraction of the teachers who received pink slips will lose their jobs.

Let's Carnival! EdWonksThe 173rd edition of The Carnival of Education (hosted this week by Bluebird's Classroom.) has opened its midway!
And don't forget to round out your educational experience by checking out The Carnival of Homeschooling.

Creationism 'Education' Still Widespread Wired
A
survey of 900 high school teachers has found that 1 in 8 still teach
creationism as a "valid scientific alternative to Darwinian
explanations for the origin of species." Did we mention that these are
science teachers?

Luckie: This is how charters should work Get On The BusClayton
Luckie State Rep. Clayton Luckie, D-Dayton and a former city school
board member, sent out a letter today praising a new partnership
between Dayton Public Schools and East End Community Community School.

Check out the newsletter from Cheryl Sattler's new education consulting company, Ethica, for a backgrounder on where Title I schoolwide programs came from (newsletter here) and a link to 17 state differentiation pilot plans that have been submitted under the "new" NCLB.

Here's a picture and some basic info on Mike Johnston, the Denver-area principal and recently-unearthed Obama advisor whose school is being visited by the candidate as part of a big high schools speech.

A Colo. native and Vail Mountain School grad, Johnston is Yale undergrad, TFA 97, Harvard ed school master's degree, New Leaders co-founder (not sure how long he was there), and Yale law school. He won an international Rubik's Cube competition at the age of eight, wrote a book about his TFA experience in the Mississippi delta, and is currently training for the 170-pound division in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. (Two of those last three are made up.)

Instead of freaking out about Internet predators and nekkid pictures, schools and lawmakers should really be tightening up on what I am guessing is the more widespread problem of cyber-bullying.

That's what I got from this NewsHour segment from earlier in the month (Case Highlights Cyber Bullying), in which it's revealed that only 12 states actually have cyber-bullying laws with school programs on the books, despite the fact that this new and vicious form of a very old practice is seems widespread.

The June issue of Chicago Magazine has a feature about the swirl of Obama's past relationships and influences and how they complicate his policy positions in ways that supporters sometimes find hard to pin down:

"Though his policies clearly tilt toward those of the Hyde Park
liberals, Obama supporters find strains of the U. of C. in his
thinking, notably in an openness to free-market solutions."

For many in Chicago, it's this "strain" of free-market solutions (including charter schools and performance pay) that makes Obama hard to support. Despite a small-scale and relatively careful development process in Chicago, charter schools (and the school closings that have accompanied them) seem as if not more controversial there as they are in any other part of the nation.

I wonder how many other schools have achieved 100 percent proficiency or thereabouts -- and why it took the mainstream news so long to find these kinds of examples, given how, er, proficient they have been at finding examples of failure.

Schools substituting field trips with video links
Sacramento Bee Call
it a 21st century field trip. Fifth-graders at Kingswood Elementary
School peered into tide pools, listened to crashing waves and peppered
a park ranger with questions – all without leaving their classroom in
Citrus Heights.

Having won the top prize at Cannes last week, the French film "The Class" ("Entre les murs") is -- fingers crossed -- headed this way soon, according to Salon (10 from Cannes):

"Starring a multi-ethnic cast of actual high-school students -- playing fictional characters they developed themselves -- alongside writer and former teacher François Begaudeau, Cantet's portrait of conflict, tragedy and triumph across a single school year achieves an effortless clarity that's far more convincing than most of the talky, self-conscious documentaries about similar subject matter. Dramatically rewarding, often hilarious and ultimately heartbreaking, "The Class" has international hit written all over it."

This weekend's long article about infamous blogger Emily Gould (Blog-Post Confidential) was long and ridiculous (and not nearly as salacious as it could have been) but raised a couple of worthwhile points nonetheless:

1. Blogging can lead you to write really, really mean things. It's only a guilty conscience and some well-timed remarks from friends and colleagues that have kept me from permanently going off the deep end on this one.

2. Bloggers can't be counted on for introspection or candor. Few admit to changes of heart, motivations, or satisfaction in their work, much less describe experiences in anything but the most self-promoting ways. You know who I'm talking about. And the other one, too.

3. Blogging can be deeply addictive -- especially at the euphoric start. Witness the orgy of opinionating that Fordham is going through right now.

Subsidizing School Construction in Massachusetts Ed Policy WatchReports
that some affluent Massachusetts school districts spending exorbitant
amounts of money to build top-of-the-line school facilities have drawn
media criticism and seized the attention of state officials.

Who's right about Education Trust? SDornThere's
a clash of views over at the multi-author blog I participate in,
Education Policy Blog, after a post by Jim Horn on how Education Trust
staffer Amy Wilkins responded to fellow blogger Dan Brown at the Ed in
'08 blogger summit

No dough for the GPS truancy project? DISD BlogThe
district isn't saying so officially, but it looks like administrators
aren't yet behind a truancy intervention project at Bryan Adams High
School.

Students in S. Bronx Refuse to Take Test ASCD BloggersAlmost
all of the eighth-graders at South Bronx's Intermediate School 318
chose to hand in blank exams at the end of a three-hour social studies
practice test.

It's one thing to hear about NYC union leader Randi Weingarten -- most recently she blew up at Michelle Rhee at last week's NSVF conference -- but another thing to see her in action. And, clearly, Weingarten's media folks are making a point of "introducing" her in somewhat friendly situations. Here she is balancing a little bit of tough talk plus lots of fairly standard support for teachers and the status quo during a half-hour Charlie Rose interview from earlier this month:

As if turning around a struggling school wasn't hard enough already, district officials -- in Chicago, New York City, and now LA Unified -- seem like they keep forgetting to put as much time and attention (and resources) into planning for the "old" school being phased out as they may be putting into planning for the new effort ('Neglect' cited as part of problem at Locke High LA Times).

Three women rise to the top of AFT union USA TodayDelegates to the American Federation of Teachers' biennial meeting here
in July are expected to elect Randi Weingarten their new president,
along with two other longtime AFT officials: Antonia Cortese and
Lorretta Johnson as secretary-treasurer and executive vice president,
respectively.

A School That Cost $20,000 Not to Go To NYTMany New York parents paying private school tuition probably feel some
pain when it comes time to pay the bill. But for Ms. Bender and her
husband, David, an artist, it really hurt — they were paying for a
school their daughter will never attend.

Racism claimed at Alabama school MSNBCA
south Alabama town that was the inspiration for the setting in Harper
Lee's book "To Kill a Mockingbird" is finding itself as the backdrop
for a real-life legal case involving allegations of racism at school.

Haven't already made up your mind about the AAUW report on the "boys crisis"? The Chronicle's Peter Schmidt revisits the history of the AAUW's efforts to promote the "girls crisis" in a blog post (Derailing Efforts to Help Troubled Boys) that you might want to check out.

Schmidt writes about affirmative action for the Chronicle and -- pointing to writing he did for EdWeek and the Weekly Standard -- suggests that the AAUW's work on behalf of the girls crisis in the early 1990s may be one of the most effective examples of advo-research in recent education history. I don't know Schmidt, but if his reporting holds up it's pretty damning stuff.

Meanwhile, I'm still taking lots of heat for suggesting that the mainstream news coverage of the recent AAUW report was shoddy and that journalists (including women) aren't capable of the ideal of journalistic objectivity that is promoted within journalism (Women's Group Says Boys Not In Crisis; Female Reporters Agree). Bad Alexander.

More On Inequitable Teacher Distribution The OptimistsHigh-school freshmen in Philadelphia are more likely to be taught by inexperienced, uncredentialed teachers than their sophomore, junior and senior counterparts. And t

Charter Schools, NCLB "Starving the Beast" ASCDLast night I went down to D.C.'s Busboys and Poets for an author and activist event that discussed alternatives to traditional schooling and critiqued the purported agenda toward privatization of the charter school movement.

Despite absence, his efforts bear fruit Boston GlobeEven President Bush - a frequent target of the Massachusetts senator's jibes - worked closely with Kennedy on the No Child Left Behind legislation.

Blood Banks Target High School Donors
NPRFaced
with a need for deeper blood reserves, blood banks are stepping up
their recruitment in high schools. And teenagers as young as 16 and 17
years old are responding to the blood drives, contributing about 10
percent of the nation's blood supply.

Obama's New Math-Science Education Bill Alyson KleinThe measure, which is sponsored in the House by Rep.
Mike Honda, D-Calif., is aimed at better coordinating the myriad of
programs geared toward improving math and science education.

Qualitative data on schools SDornRhee sent teams of people into
schools she wanted to change...Having students,
parents, and educators visit schools to provide a snapshot is
dramatically different from just looking at test scores and prescribing
a cookie-cutter "fix."

Questions about the CRCT continue AJCKathy
Cox threw out the CRCT social studies scores for sixth- and
seventh-graders, but kept the math scores for eighth-graders. The state
schools superintendent says there’s a big difference between the two
exams.

Sol Stern and the SUTVA Shenanigans The 'KetteExperiments in social
science are fundamentally different than experiments in medicine, and
it turns out gold standard is often more silver or bronze than we would
have hoped.

Girl Stabbed in School Fight Detention SlipRather than making 'burn books'
and spreading mean rumors, girls are now skipping all the middle men
and just slashing their enemies with a series of life-threatening cuts.

Daaaaaaamn Teaching In The 408I
heart anyone who will take a hard-line stance to the whine-despair-whine- hand-to-the-forehead-whine of the tests are big and
bad and scary (there was a fair amount of editing on the actual gross tonnage of all that).

The Suspension Gap Minneapolis Star Tribune
Black students in Minnesota
are being suspended at a rate about six times that of white students,
according to a Star Tribune analysis of state Department of Education
data. Most are suspended for lesser incidents, such as talking in
class, goofing around or challenging teachers -- offenses for which
there is more disciplinary leeway.

School districts attending to attendance San Diego Union-TribuneDropout
prevention specialist Jenifer Mendel knocked several times on door of
the trailer-park home of a 17-year-old El Cajon boy who had missed
nearly a month of school.

Charters Break Mold by Picking, Choosing NOLA.com
Considered
a trailblazing city in national education circles for embracing charter
schools, New Orleans also might be the only city in the country where
several charter schools have competitive admissions, requiring some or
all students to have specific test scores, grades or foreign-language
background to enroll.

Some districts are hiring private eyes to verify student addresses, according to this WSJ blog story -- in response to their own rising costs and diminishing revenue, as well as in response to the increase in foreclosures that forces parents to move to other locations.

Toldja this was going to happen: A 17 year old Wisconsin teenager has been arrested for posting -- and refusing to take down -- naked pictures of his ex-girlfriendon MySpace. She's 16, and took and sent the pictures to him while they were still going out. Via the Smoking Gun. Isn't MySpace supposed to prohibit nudity? And shouldn't the girlfriend be be charged, too -- for teen stupidity?

Nebraska boy wins geography beeMSNBCQuick:
Cochabamba is the third-largest conurbation in what country? An
11-year-old answered "Bolivia" to clinch the 20th annual National
Geographic Bee on Wednesday.

McCain Hones Education Message Charlie Essence Magazine publishes an exclusive interview with John McCain today in which he seems to be road testing an education message for the general election - emphasizing educational inequities and achievement gaps (who said John Edwards’ "Two Americas" theme didn’t have an impact?).

Free Trade And Education AndywonkOne thing that seems pretty clear is
that the increasing churn in school systems is going to cause some
displacement much in the way that globalization is causing displacement
in other industries.

Scientology School? Core KnowledgeNary
a word about it in the domestic press, but overseas papers and gossip
sites are thick with stories about Will Smith–yes, that Will Smith–who
is reportedly bankrolling a new California Pre-K to 6 school, The New
Village Academy of Calabasas.

I spent more time fighting Ted Kennedy during my two stints as a Senate education staffer than I did fighting against the Republicans.

First it was trying to get various amendments and changes into Goals 2000 and the Title I funding formula for Senator Feinstein. Then it was trying to get education technology and ed school accountability provisions into the higher education act for Jeff Bingaman. Not to speak of national standards and dropout prevention.

Of course, Kennedy has no idea who I am. But his former staffers -- Ellen Guiney, Danica Petroshius in particular -- knew that my calls and ideas were hardly ever going to be good or welcome ones from their perspective. But Kennedy and his education team were always prepared, always ahead, and always
pretty fierce about what they were doing. Education wasn't a genteel
side game for them. They played it just as hard as foreign affairs or anything else. And I liked that.

The news coverage of the gender education issue continues to disappoint:

Yesterday's front-page Washington Post story identified the report's source and included a dissenting view but that's about it -- no examination of the quality of the report itself (No Crisis For Boys In Schools, Study Says).

This is a report, not research. This report comes from an
advocacy group, not an independent or academic organization. Journalistic orthodoxy is that researchers' and reporters' own personal views and experiences (including gender) don't shape their writing, but let's be honest: that's just not humanly possible. I'll let others consider the quality or completeness of the work itself.

There's a fascinating little review of kids magazine Highlights in The New York Review of Magazines, a mag put out by the folks at the Columbia Journalism School. You've probably seen the magazine -- its circulation is listed at 2 million and it's been around since 1946.

"Now a staple of elementary schools and doctors’ offices across the nation, the magazine aims to “help children develop creativity, sensitivity, literacy and the ability to think and reason” by presenting games and stories for children ages 6 to 12....The overwhelming majority of subscriptions go directly to families. It’s mostly parents or grandparents giving subscriptions to children.”

I wonder if it's giving Scholastic a run for its money. Must remember to ask.

Wondering where all those Internet-crazy TFA corps member blogs are? You can find a bunch of them at Teach For Us, a Facebook page whose tagline is "Closing the TFA blogging gap." Click here for a list of blogs affiliated with the page. (There are, of course, many others.)

Fixing the Flaw in the ‘Growth Model’ EdWeekThree
education advocates offer their advice for improving NCLB's 'growth
model' pilot assessment system. The improvements would be a boon, they
write, to schools, states, and the federal law itself.

Schools Struggle With Dark Writings WSJIn
the wake of the Virginia Tech killings, universities are trying to keep
an eye out for student writings that foretell campus violence. But
their vigilance raises the prospect of infringing on students' rights.

Why We Need ‘Translational’ Research EdWeekMary
Brabeck urges adoption of a new paradigm that would foster better
working relationships among researchers and classroom practitioners.

Teacher Contract Would End Seniority WashPostThe
Washington Teachers' Union is discussing a proposed three-year contract
from the school system that would eliminate seniority, giving Schools
Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee more control in filling vacancies, a union
member familiar with the talks said yesterday.

4:50: Some of the things I've overheard today: *There's not as much talent
in this room as the people in the room think there is. *People like me
are a dime a dozen -- there are hundreds of people who could do what
I'm doing (a paraphrase from Michelle Rhee). *That's way over the top
(Newark mayor Cory Booker about Ted Mitchell's over the top
introduction). *Let's be honest. This is a grand experiment, a very
high risk proposition (Tom Toch about venture philanthropy). *I got
mine -- you shut up (one wag in response to the NSVF admonition against
solicitations at the summit). *You're the one who turned me onto The
Wire (NYC DOE deputy chancellor Joel Rose to me about my blog).

4:30: Just got out of an interesting media session where edupreneurs from DC took questions from reporters (many of whom like the Times' Sam Dillon and the Post's Dion Haynes I had not met before). Some reporters like Greg Toppo seemed to wonder where the edupreneurial strategy is on the political front -- that is, how to create more Adrien Fenties rather than just waiting for lightning to strike. Me, I'm stuck wondering just how tough these venture philanthropists are compared to regular ones.

11:30: I'm bored and agitated at the same time -- not sure why. Everyone's all aflutter about Rhee and Weingarten going at it. Ooh, conflict! Now Rhee's up there as a panelist (vs. playing the loyal defender of TNTP from the audience), and she's still riled up and in battle mode. Or, as she says, "terrified." Indeed, she should be. The situation in DC is a perfect storm for outside reform types and if it doesn't work out well, then, everyone should probably just pack it up and go home. In a fight between Rhee and Weingarten, I gotta say my bet would be on...Weingarten. And it may come to that in a few months.

10:20 AM: Two straight hours of talk in the AM is a little much, according to those of us loitering in the hall and getting an early start on the cookies and Diet Coke. When does an introduction turn into a mini-speech? I don't know, but there were too many introductions. Now finally into question and answer.

As for the substance, well, it's an anti-district anti-union crowd by and large, even though there's all this lip service given to the Michelle Rhees and Adrien Fenties of the world. A strange dichotomy. Good to have Randi Weingarten up there pushing back on current fetishes for charters and choice. And how fun that Rhee and Weingarten get into it about the contract in New York. Mike is here, paying much more attention than I am: Liveblogging the NewSchools Summit.

What else? Lots of friends here, lots of frenemies. Nobody likes my idea for a new blog about k12 education giving, or its proposed name ("The Magic [Bill Gates] Spray Can"). Some folks have laughed at my new cards, whose tagline is "It's not about the kids." It's not. You know it's not. Maybe it should be. But it usually isn't. Look hard at anyone who tells you that it is. I love that the NSVF folks have been prepped not to talk to me.

8:44 AM: Rainy cold Tuesday morning in DC at the Capitol Hilton. Not nearly as spectacular a setting as last year in New Orleans, and not nearly enough breakfast either. (Let the complaining begin.) Apparently there was something of a drunken melee at last night's NSVF "rehearsal dinner" at steakhouse Smith and Wollensky. Gates education honcho Vicki Phillips gives a few remarks, proving that she really exists. DC Mayor Fenty opens and calls for mayoral control not just of school systems but also of water boards and everything else. Amazing to see so many familiar faces in one place. It's all bold-face
names, all the time. At least for education. (It's also a lot like
speed dating, quipped Chicago's Josh Adelman about the
hyper-socializing going on.)

Think most ed groups and every ed association are all against incentive pay? So did I. But then I found out that the 175,000-member ASCD supports incentive pay and has endorsed the Teacher Excellence for All
Children (TEACH) Act (Incentive Pay for Teachers Is an Option (Take 2). ASCD supports incentive pay and performance pay, for individuals as well as schools. As long as it's voluntary, not based on a single test, and determined locally. Sure, it's not a traditional association like the AASA or the Chiefs, but it's worth noting.

Ed law professor Justin Bathon writes on his blog, Edjurist, that his former employer ECS has to update its web offerings with a blog and RSS feeds if it wants people to read its generally high-quality products (ECS and Web 2.0).

Much the same could be said of many other education organizations (and media outlets), which are being left behind by upstart operations and even by the mainstream media.